Submitted by drew on

Traffic Question 13:

The John Deere Express / Milan Beltway exchange. Which of these is the better road layout and design?

IDOT's Answer:

It is easily apparent that the top diagram is much simpler. Let’s remove some of the distracting parts of the diagram to illustrate this.

Moline/Milan have no stops. Moline/Rock Island and Milan/Rock Island both have opportunities to stop and enjoy the scenery.

Let’s build a ROAD! Quack, quack. (You may be familiar with Word World’s “Let’s build a word.”)

Conventional Answer

Are you nuts? Who wants to sit at extra stop lights and stop signs, and make extra turns and merges? The only way the top diagram makes sense is if Milan is trying to get people to come to Milan (by mistake).

The lower diagram has zero stop signs, zero stop lights for any direction. No bizarre pathing, except perhaps a minor loop for Milan to Rock Island.

Additional Information:

Apparently, the main reasons for a new connection was 1) need for expansion and 2) Blackhawk State Park is a historical area with embankments that prevent widening of the existing road. IDOT still have the report available (directory,  first section of report. road plan for future development).

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Installing GBridge on Windows 8, Windows 8.1 and Windows 10

Submitted by drew on

 

Just because I don't want to have to look this up again. Windows 8's driver signing enforcement prevents installing GBridge's network drivers. I posted how to work around that on gbridge.net forums when I was testing the Windows 8 preview, but their forum is offline now.

Windows 8

This method works for Professional or Home versions.

Grape Harvest

Submitted by drew on

 

I finally got a full harvest off of this vine (before birds, etc.) These grapes are pretty sour, if you just pick and eat. And seedy. However, I always thought they might make good jelly or something. So this year, I have lots of grapes to try something.

Basically, the process is:

Raspberry-Vanilla Pudding

Submitted by drew on

We have a picnic on July 4 where we are supposed to bring a dish. An hour before the picnic... what should we bring? We have lots of fresh-picked raspberries and that vanilla pudding I got last week. After a few minutes of Google-searching for things that use those two ingredients (no results, except for baked items and stuff of the wrong kind), I am going to make my own recipe for this.

Five Crunch Mix

Submitted by drew on
 
Five different textures of crunch for a delightful and versatile snack that doesn't leave your taste buds feeling like you drank an ocean of saltwater.
 
Shake together in a container (or snack bag) in the desired proportions....
  • honey nut cheerios
  • pretzels (thin style, broken in pieces)
  • unsalted peanuts
  • Spanish peanuts
  • banana chips
  • raisins
 
I usually go heavy on the cheerios.